Comment Adrian Portelli a construit une entreprise de 100 millions de dollars par an avec zéro employé

The Setup: At 29, Portelli had $400 left and a graveyard of failed ventures. By 33, he was a billionaire. No team. No office. Just ruthless product-market fit.

Here’s what actually happened:

The Real Playbook

Phase 1: Find the Loophole (2018-2019) LMCT+ started as a car price comparison site—boring, competitive, dead on arrival. But Portelli spotted something: people don’t want data, they want incentives. He pivoted to giveaways (cars, houses) to drive signups. When authorities flagged it as illegal gambling, he didn’t panic—he just gave away the prizes outright. Cost of customer acquisition? Massive upfront, but it worked.

Phase 2: Scale via Paid Social (2019-2020) Invested $10M+ into Facebook ads. Not random spend—highly targeted contests that generated viral buzz. Each prize draw pulled thousands of email signups. Conversion funnel: Contest → Email → Upsell.

Phase 3: Flip to Organic + Influencer (2020+) 1M+ followers accumulated through:

• User-generated content from winners
• Collaboration with local influencers
• Viral TikTok/YouTube clips of car giveaways

Organic reach reduced CAC (customer acquisition cost) dramatically.

The Unit Economics That Actually Matter

• Revenue: $100M+ annually
• Model: Subscription-based digital product (high margin, likely 70%+)
• Overhead: Minimal—no physical inventory, no employees, hosted on cloud
• CAC Payback: Brutal at first ($10M in ads), but compounded as organic took over

Why This Actually Works (and Why It’s Harder Now)

✓ What he nailed: Social proof + scarcity (limited prizes) + low friction (email signup) ✗ Why it’s replicable but risky: CPM on Facebook has 3x’d since 2018. Ad saturation is real. Regulatory scrutiny on contests is tighter.

The Real Takeaway: This wasn’t genius—it was product-market fit + obsessive testing + willingness to adapt when regulators push back. He found a gap in consumer psychology (people will trade data for a chance at a prize) and monetized it systematically.

The playbook: Attention → Email → Monetize. In 2024, same strategy, different platform (TikTok Shop probably beats Facebook). Still works. But you need capital to survive the acquisition phase before organic kicks in.